The sweet-favoured, yellow carrots grown by Uzbek farmer Mukhtor Gazatov are a key ingredient in Uzbekistan's national pilaf dish -- but extreme weather has devastated this year's harvest. According to the "plov index", echoing the Big Mac index used as a measure for the cost of living in other countries, in the first nine months of this year the price of plov in Tashkent rose by nearly 30 percent, according to the index, due to steadily rising prices for meat and an explosion in carrot prices. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES